In This Issue

Hello, and welcome back to The Franchise!

Late last week, a hundred federal agents descended on a non-profit voting rights group, known as Ohio Organizing Collaborative, which focuses on helping underrepresented communities register to vote. Federal agents raided the group’s office and also approached people with connections to the organization at their homes, armed with subpoenas, seizing documents and equipment, reportedly as part of an investigation into OOC’s voter registration practices and allegations of supposed voter fraud.

Prentiss Haney, a board member of the organization, told MS NOW, that the agents were “basically trying to fish for information.”

“They had agents all across the state going to civil rights leaders’ and community leaders’ doors intimidating them, coming and demanding that they talk about literally anything they would ask,” he said. “Just straight-up intimidation tactics.” 

“Any attempts by federal law enforcement to intimidate eligible Ohioans from registering to vote are unacceptable,” Democratic Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton similarly said in a statement. “Both Republicans and Democrats attest to the security of Ohio’s elections, and it is important that eligible Ohio voters feel safe registering to vote and casting their ballots this November."

There’s still a lot unknown about the raid, but it appears to fall in line with the Trump administration’s broader effort to disenfranchise voters, go after voting rights advocates and investigate past elections to help bolster President Trump’s conspiracy theories. There’s new reporting out this week from Signal Ohio that gives some context as to why this voting rights organization has become the DOJ’s latest target. 

Federal agents contacted Cuyahoga County elections officials in February or March 2025 to ask about voter registrations from canvassers working for Black Fork Strategies, a firm that is linked to Ohio Organizing Collaborative, according to Signal Ohio. The agents were reportedly following up on complaints from Cuyahoga County elections officials against the firm who had previously flagged irregular voter registrations, including some that included the names of dead voters. 

Importantly, though, as Signal Ohio notes, the flagged registrations did not result in any illegal voting, according to Tony Kaloger, the deputy director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. 

There have also been reports from election officials in other Ohio counties about irregular 2024 voter registration submitted through Black Fork Strategies, which is reportedly what led the Department of Homeland Security to ask about the firm in 2026, according to Signal Ohio. 

This reporting, however, still does not explain why last week’s raid was as aggressive as it was. We will be watching this story closely, so stay tuned for more. 

There’s still a lot more to unpack this week. Let’s dig in.

— Khaya Himmelman

California officials are suing a deep red California county over a problematic ballot measure — inspired by conspiracy theories — that voters approved this month which would ban most mail-in voting, and require the hand-counting of ballots, among other election administration-related changes. 

The county’s current County Clerk and Registrar of Voters and supporter of Measure B, is Clint Curtis, a known election denier. 

In a lawsuit filed on Friday in California’s Third District Court of Appeals, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber argue that the measure, known as Measure B, violates state election law. The lawsuit, which asks for a response by August 24, asks the court to block the measure from being implemented.  

“Indeed, the measure’s defects are so extreme that the County previously filed a lawsuit seeking to be relieved of its obligation to prepare a title and summary for the initiative, and the initiative’s lead proponent has openly acknowledged that ‘there are sections that are illegal,’” the lawsuit reads.

 “Nevertheless, the measure made its way onto the ballot and passed in the recent primary election,” the suit continues. “It now threatens to upend the entire elections system in a county with more than 116,000 registered voters just months before the November general election.”

“California has worked too hard to build an election system that is more accessible, more secure, and more reflective of the needs of voters across this state. Measure B turns back the clock moving in the exact opposite direction of what voters deserve,” Weber said in a statement last week. 

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday, in a 4-0 vote, to not defend the county or Curtis in the lawsuit filed by the state. 

Shasta County has been a breeding ground for election conspiracies for years now.

In 2023, the county’s supervisor board — which had recently been overrun by election deniers, fueled by conspiracy theories about voting machines — tried to adopt a hand-count voting system. The county, again inspired by baseless conspiracies, had gotten rid of its contract with Dominion Voting System, and instead sought to pursue a hand-counting system. But, hand-counting ballots is both incredibly inefficient and a system that is prone to error. In response, the state implemented a law to ban hand-counting of ballots in most cases.

In 2024, a MAGA election denying candidate for the county board Laura Hobbs, with the support of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, attempted to overturn her primary loss, alleging baseless instances of election fraud, as previously reported for TPM. Hobbs only got 19.2% of the vote, but filed a lawsuit against the Shasta County Registrar of Voters shortly after her loss, claiming without any basis that there were “many illegal ballots cast in this election.”

Speaking of election deniers in charge of elections … More election chaos is brewing in Maricopa County — Arizona’s most populous county that, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, was ground zero for election misinformation. 

Yet another election administration-related legal battle, with the state’s primary election only days away, does not bode well for a county that has for years now been dealing with election conspiracy theories and election denial-related violence. 

Here’s what happened. 

The county’s GOP-controlled board of supervisors accused the office of Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap — a Republican with strong ties to the MAGA election denial universe — of removing voting equipment and documents, including a scanner and provisional ballot envelopes, from the county’s main tabulation center during a local election in March.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, also a Republican, initiated an investigation into these allegations. 

In response, Heap said in legal filings that the equipment in question was "purchased entirely with Recorder’s Office funds in 2023 and has never been lawfully transferred to the Elections Department.”

He further argued that employees from his office were trying to “retrieve” his office’s own property in order to scan provisional ballot envelopes. 

“In an apparent effort to manufacture the appearance of scandal on the eve of an election, members of the Board have leveled a barrage of public accusations against employees who have no meaningful ability to defend themselves in the political arena. These are professional election administrators, not political figures,” Heap wrote in a statement last week.

Responding to Heap’s filing and statements, two members of the board of supervisors, Kate Brophy McGee and Debbie Lesko, who are both Republican, said that these actions created “grave chain-of-custody concerns” and that the scanner was controlled by the board, and not by Heap’s office, as he had claimed. 

“The Board was forced to purchase a new elections scanner because of the unauthorized movement of the elections equipment by Recorder Heap's staff, costing Maricopa County taxpayers $70,000,” Lesko said on X, last week. “This isn't conservative. This is chaos.”

Heap’s lawyer had a really great idea last week — he suggested that election denier and conspiracy theorist Cleta Mitchell mediate this now ongoing dispute between Heap and the Board of Supervisors. The board, however, rejected this suggestion, calling Mitchell “overtly biased.”

Maryland Democrats could move ahead with a 2028 redistricting effort next month, with a special session for a redistricting proposal for the November ballot potentially in the works.

In a recent letter, Democratic House Speaker Joseline Pena-Melnyk asked lawmakers to keep portions of their schedules open next month to prepare for a possible special session on redistricting. 

“At this time, no decision has been made,” she wrote. “To provide members with as much notice as possible, please reserve July 16-July 22 and July 30-August 5 on your calendars should your attendance in Annapolis be required, with a preference for the July 16-22 timeframe.”

“If a special session is called, I do not anticipate that it would extend beyond a couple of days,” she added.

A Democratic-led redistricting push has been in the works for months now, even before the recent SCOTUS decision gutting the Voting Rights Act set off a firestorm of redistricting across the South, as Republican lawmakers scrambled to break up majority-minority districts. The state’s Democratic governor was among a handful of Democratic officials who tried to redraw congressional district lines ahead of the midterms in an effort to offset the impact of Trump’s nationwide gerrymandering pressure campaign.

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore first announced the creation of the Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Commission back in November. 

“My commitment has been clear from day one — we will explore every avenue possible to make sure Maryland has fair and representative maps,” Moore said in a statement to Maryland Matters, back in the fall. “This commission will ensure the people are heard. I thank those who have raised their hands to lead this process, and I am confident in their ability to gather the views and perspectives of a broad range of voices throughout the state.”

The commission approved a new congressional map that would flip the state’s only GOP-held congressional seat to a Democratic-seat. The proposal was then stalled in February.

Senate President Bill Ferguson was previously resistant to advancing a redistricting effort, saying that it could backfire and end up giving Republicans an additional congressional seat.  

But, in the fallout of Louisiana v. Callais, Ferguson changed his stance. 

"The Supreme Court acted. We in Maryland have to address having a new constitutional standard for voting rights, and so that does require a constitutional amendment to Maryland's Constitution," Ferguson told FOX45 News this week. 

TPM: Georgia Republicans See Writing on the Wall

TPM: Conspiracy Theorist Wins Nomination to Oversee Nevada’s Elections 

Politico: Judge recuses herself in Georgia voter rolls case

NPR: Voting officials fear DHS may actually be a threat to elections this year